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Old 06-18-2006, 07:24 PM   #4 (permalink)
Zankou
Committing senseless acts of Ashvamedha
 
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Los Angeles
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Aesopian
Good review. I doubt I care enough about turtle to get this though.

Trivia: I train with a guy who ran scoring tables at two Pan Ams and got to score Telles' matches for two years in a row. He said the first year Telles played more of a sitting guard, but that he was very slumped over, almost face down. The next year he started using turtle instead.
Interesting, and not surprising. He plays a hybrid between the two, and treats the positions almost as the same thing, with the turtle just being with your "flat" leg back, rather than forward.

One of the strange omissions in the set (which I would've expected to see in basics) was how to pull guard from turtle. Apparently Telles would not even consider such a thing, which seems odd ... but when you consider that for him sitting guard and turtle are basically the same thing, it makes more sense. For him to pull guard, he simply brings his far leg under him as he rotates into sitting guard.

I would highly recommend the set to sitting guard guys, because it adds a tremendous range of new depth and options to that position, without detracting at all. Less so to the more pure "butterfly" guys, who stay closer and use both hooks.
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